Yang Yang, Ph.D.

Director, Center for Taiji and Qigong Studies

Chair, Academic Committee

Yang Yang, Ph.D. is one of the few individuals who is recognized within the traditional Taiji and Qigong community as a master practitioner and is also an academic researcher interested in applying the highest standards of the Western scientific process to explore and promote evidence-based Eastern healing arts.

Yang trained in China under several of the 18th generation grandmasters of the Chen style, including masters Gu Liuxin and Chen Zhaokui. He won first place in the Shanghai University Gongfu Tournament for three straight years (1981-1983), and in 1983 he was voted Best Overall Martial Artist at that tournament. These accomplishments earned him positions as Taiji instructor at the China Textile University and the Shanghai Chen Style Taiji Research Association, and an opportunity to study closely and privately with Grandmaster Feng Zhiqiang in Beijing. Yang formally became a disciple of Grandmaster Feng in 1988.

To understand the power and mechanics of Taiji and Qigong beyond traditional explanatory frameworks, Master Yang completed a doctorate degree in kinesiology at the University of Illinois, where he remains as an adjunct faculty. His research focuses directly on the mechanisms and benefits of traditional Taiji/Qigong, and he has published several scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals. Yang's detailed study of Taiji/Qigong from these commanding points of view - as a master practitioner and as a scientific researcher – uniquely enable him to clarify and/or demystify what are often obscure points of theory and practice and to serve as a bridge between the Eastern/traditional and Western/academic fields. His traditional training also allowed him to distill the essence of various aspects of traditional Taiji training into an evidence-based program suitable for persons of all ages and physical abilities.

Dr. Yang is author of the award winning book Taijiquan: The Art of Nurturing, The Science of Power, and is currently the Director of the Center for Taiji and Qigong Studies with offices in New York City and Champaign, IL